Airplane's last flight 🔥

How Airtable acquired and closed this $32M startup.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 [Read Online]( Airplane's Last Flight How Airtable acquired and closed this $32M startup. [Nicolás Cerdeira]( [fb]( [tw]( [in]( [email](mailto:?subject=Post%20from%20Failory&body=Airplane%27s%20Last%20Flight%3A%20How%20Airtable%20acquired%20and%20closed%20this%20%2432M%20startup.%0A%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter.failory.com%2Fp%2Fairplanes-last-flight) Hey — It’s Nico. After years of writing about what happens with startups in San Francisco, I’m finally in the city! I won’t be doing a meetup because I don’t have that much time to organize it. But I’d love to grab a coffee with some of you. I’ll be here until March 30. Reply to this email if you’re interested! Today’s edition is brought to you by [PartnerHero]( — hire a fractional CXO for your startup. Here’s what I got today: - An analysis of Airtable’s acquisition and shutdown of Airplane 🔥 - The growth of Yerba Marte consumption and startups 📈 Presented by PartnerHero Hire a Fractional CXO For Your Startup Remember the customer experience ebook [I shared two weeks ago](? The same CX experts who wrote it are now available for hire: [PartnerHero’s Fractional CXOs](. Their team of CX professionals is available for hire for one-time, temporary projects, or even a part-time commitment. Whether you are: - A solo founder who needs to delegate customer support, - An early-stage founder starting to think further about CX, - Or a growing startup founder looking to scale your support team… [PartnerHero’s CXOs]( will help you improve your customer support and achieve your industry's highest customer retention rates. [Hire a Fractional CXO →]( This Week In Startups 🫡 ICYMI [Why Stripe created]( a book publishing house. [3 startup failures]( and what we can learn from them. 🔗 Resources [5 lessons I got]( from my failed startup. How AI [creates opportunity in traditional industries](. How to pick the [right venture studio](. 3 failed startup founders [share 8 takeaways](. 4 steps to [building and sustaining moats](. 📰 News A16z is [looking to secure $7B In new funds](. Sifted’s survey shows [49% of founders are considering quitting]( their startup this year. [Monzo hits $5B valuation]( as it looks at US expansion. [Spain temporarily bans]( Sam Altman’s crypto Worldcoin over privacy concerns. [Alumis raises $259M]( to develop therapies designed to address immune dysfunction. [Todyl raises $50M in Series B]( round to enhance its all-in-one security platform. Banking-as-a-Service startup [Griffin secures $24M](. 🤝 From Community Stephanie Vogel won a free feature in Failory after referring 5 friends. She is working at WorldUpstart. Starting in September, [WorldUpstart Accelerator]( will help Life Sciences, MedTech, and Digital Health companies enter the US market and achieve fast traction. Fail(St)ory Airplane's Last Flight Earlier this month, [Airplane.dev](, the developer platform for internal tools, ceased operations. Founded in 2021, Airplane aimed to be the go-to tool for creating internal business apps, streamlining the development processes for developers. Their focus lay in automating various aspects of development, including UI, authentication, permissions, and audits. During its initial year and a half, Airplane experienced significant growth: - The team expanded from 12 to over 20 members. - They successfully onboarded numerous new customers. - In 2022, they secured $32 million in Series B funding. However, in 2023, the company's revenue growth rate stalled, and several engineers departed. In December of the same year, the CEO announced Airplane's acquisition by Airtable, but it soon became evident that this acquisition was atypical. Airtable's interest was not in Airplane.dev's product, technology, or customer base, but rather in acquiring Airplane's CEO to lead their new AI initiative. It was essentially an aqui-hire. Airplane’s employees were offered positions in Airtable and were given signing bonuses to compensate for the loss of equity from the shutdown. The customers, on the other hand, were abandoned. The shutdown of Airplane meant that all the tools that they had spent time and resources developing were now useless. Reasons for Failure Benjamin Yolken, a former employee of Airplane.dev wrote a [compelling article analyzing Airplane’s shutdown](. There are a few interesting takeaways: - Airplane still had “tens of millions of dollars in the bank, a great team, relatively happy costumers, low churn, and solid revenue growth.” - Yolken argues that the acquisition terms were unfavorable, given the company’s potential for sustained expansion. - The primary reason behind the acquisition, according to Yolken, was that the CEO was “tired of the startup grind” and wanted a less stressful position within Airtable. While Yolken's perspective is insightful, it's essential to consider some additional factors contributing to Airplane's demise: - The company's stagnant growth likely impeded its ability to secure further funding, putting it at risk of becoming a [“Zombie Startup.”](. - The decision was not only up to the CEO. The investors probably pushed hard for the acquisition, given that they [were also investors in Airtable](. What Could Have Been Done Differently As I've pointed out earlier, the biggest losers in this takeover were the customers of Airplane who had to rebuild their internal apps using other alternatives. Yolken is correct in saying that this broke the trust of these customers and that the situation could have been handled better. He suggests three alternative approaches to the acquisition: - Waiting for a buyout offer that included keeping the product going. - Selling the Airplane technology to another company that would keep improving it. - Making the product open-source. None of these happened, and so there’s a new opportunity in the internal tool space, with many companies looking for alternatives to the now-shuttered Airplane.dev. Trend Radar Yerba Mate As an Argentine, I've always been struck by how few countries embrace yerba mate with the same fervor as we do. If you ever visit Argentina (or many other Latin American countries), you'll notice that mate is ubiquitous: in schools, offices, or any gathering place, there's always a mate being shared around. Lately, however, it seems like the rest of the world is catching on to what we've known for generations. It seems like more and more, the American public has started to realize how great mate is, and new startups have started to catch on. For instance, the renowned neuroscientist Andrew Huberman recently [announced he was partnering]( with [Mateina]( to bring their yerba mate energy drink into the American market. While as an Argentine, I'm tempted to point out that mate traditionally isn't consumed as an energy drink, the appeal of their product is undeniable. This phenomenon is part of a broader trend: [Guayaki](, another yerba mate company, has recently[raised $75M in funding](, indicating a significant interest in the market. Additionally, a quick look at Google Trends reveals a [noticeable uptick in searches]( related to yerba mate over the past few years. It seems the world is finally waking up to the wonders of mate. Refer Failory, Get Rewards Share Failory Chances are you have some more friends who would enjoy Failory as much as you do. Share Failory with these friends and cash in on premium resources and swag. You currently have 0 referrals, only 1 away from receiving my Pitch Deck Airtable. [Share Failory →]( Or copy and paste this link to others: Help Me Improve Failory How Was Today's Newsletter? If this issue was a startup, how would you rate it? [🚀 Launches to the moon!]( [🤔 Room for a pivot]( [💀 Crashes and burns]( That's all of this edition. Cheers, Nico Update your email preferences or unsubscribe [here]( © 2024 Failory 1309 Coffeen Avenue Ste 1200, Sheridan, Wyoming 82801, United States of America [[beehiiv logo]Powered by beehiiv](